


honey

by wajjs



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Deathfic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Sickfic, Terminal Illnesses, Timeline Shenanigans, Unreliable Narrator, unreliable timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23877844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: "Oh, dear," Talia's voice never sounded so much like honey, "I'm afraid it's time."
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd
Comments: 12
Kudos: 142





	honey

**Author's Note:**

> i'm keeping what i wanted to keep from canon while burning all the rest

**honey**

  
  


**Three Months (A)**

The man waits patiently for his turn to be called. He stays still in his chair, uncomfortable and restricting, stares ahead and mentally counts the time that keeps ticking. Every now and then he gets distracted by something on his phone (a text message? a notification from another app? an update?), but that only lasts for a few minutes before he’s back to position number one.

It’s clear to anyone who bothers to pay any amount of attention that he’s nervous while trying to appear put together. The receptionist doesn’t smile at him, she’s busy taking calls, writing down appointments, answering questions, handing files to the doctor in their office.

The man waits while feeling that this is a waste of time. Almost an hour past his appointment, the door to the doctor’s office opens, out steps the professional and calls out his name. He stands, wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans and pockets his phone all in one motion. 

“Mr. Harrison?,” the doctor asks with a cordial smile and the man nods. “Come on in.”

**Tuesday**

When he lands on the roof with all the grace and ease of yesterday, there’s a weight to the atmosphere that hadn’t been there at the very beginning of the night. Alert, he moves silently, sticks to the scattered shadows and waits - waits to see _what_ exactly is making the change.

Nightwing finds him. It’s Red Hood the energy he sensed, the presence shifting the current of the air. He stretches out to his full height, walks on light feet to the other’s side and smiles as he lets himself relax. Just an inch. Tentatively.

“How’s the night going for you?,” he asks.

There is no immediate reply. Red Hood doesn’t seem to even fully acknowledge his presence. He’s staring ahead, frown on his features, tension in the line of his jaw. Oddly exposed without his helmet. Nightwing files this all in his mind, remarks it with the importance it deserves. Something odd is happening.

“It’s going,” Red Hood finally says, doesn’t turn to look at him. Maybe it’s the angle, the way the lights from a nearby billboard and the shadows frame him, but there is a sick glow to his face.

He doesn’t get a chance to inspect any more. Both their comms come to life at the same time, a distinctive growl following. So Nightwing promises himself he’ll ask more about this later. Right after the latest crisis has been dealt with.

**Three Months (5)**

Dick’s mind is still reeling. He’s sitting on the counter, gripping onto its edges, feeling like the whole world has just caved in under his feet. Usually he likes being surrounded by those he loves, but this time all they are managing is making him feel claustrophobic. Like air is missing. Like he really needs to go out, punch something, or just. Just climb to somewhere high, and open, where he can feel the wind against his face.

He still tries because he’s never going to be ready to be open about all the little things that go through his mind. He tries because he knows they have all been so worried, because he considers them family, because they didn’t abandon him when he was the most douchebag version of himself he could ever be.

“So,” Dick clears his throat once, trying to get rid of the funny feeling there, “Ric, huh?”

Standing behind everybody else, closest to the main entrance, is Bruce. Dick’s eyes easily find his and a weight lifts off his shoulders when he can tell the old man is smiling without even twitching his lips.

**Monday**

Going back to the life that had been put on hold before is sort of easy. Sort of, because it’s known territory. He knows the dance well, it’s easy to fall back and fill the roles demanded by each situation, like an ongoing performance, the one of his whole life. The intermezzo has finally finished. Now it’s time for the glorious show to continue.

He climbs back into his apartment, happily listening to Barbara talking, just, existing, gosh how much he’s missed her without even knowing. He’s not distracted enough not to notice, one step into the living room, that he’s not alone - one sharp look in the direction of the bathroom and he notices the door’s open, there is light coming out of the room and casting over the hallway.

_“Ah, yes, Jason’s there,”_ Barbara tells him perhaps a minute too late but he doesn’t mind. She hums and Dick can faintly hear the sound of her typing on her keyboard. He smiles. _“Well, I’ll leave you guys alone.”_

“What?,” he rolls his shoulders a little before stretching his arms over his head, pushing up against the air till he feels his back give a satisfying little _pop,_ “You mean you got better things to do?”

_“Other than talking to you, for your own amusement? Of course.”_

The sound of water coming off from the bathroom stops. Jason steps onto the threshold and stays there, light at his back, front shielded by dim shadows. Dick smiles at him as he begins stripping out of his suit.

“Ok then,” moving through his house with no hurry, he drops his items on different surfaces, walking to the kitchen to get himself something to eat. He listens to the sound of Jason’s steps following him, “but we’ll continue this later.”

_“Sure, birdboy. Sure.”_

The line goes mute after that, so Dick takes out his comm, turns it off and grabs the nearest open box of whatever he’s got on the counter. When he turns around, he’s not surprised to see Jason hovering near the open entrance of the kitchen, still partially keeping to the shadows.

“Heard you were back to being ok,” Jason starts talking before Dick can ask what he’s come all the way here for. Movements a little stilted, obviously awkward, he lifts a hand to tap his head with his index finger twice. “Got your memories back, and all that.”

He thinks about this a little. The news aren’t recent, and Jason most definitely heard of everything shortly after it happened, right? He quite distinctly recalls letting everyone know he’s back and better than ever. But Jason hadn’t been there during that first reunion or the other ones that followed.

A bit more of quick thinking easily lets him remember that Jason’s been slithering through the periphery of their perception quite a lot lately. Staying away as much as he can while being in the same city. Like right here right now, he’s standing half away from Dick’s gaze, looking more and more uncomfortable.

“Yes,” he says, narrowing his eyes a little. All his instincts are screaming at him to _pay attention._ “I’m sure that’s not why you are here?”

“No, right,” Jason clears his throat once and the action has him cough into his elbow. Alarm bells go off loudly inside Dick’s head. “Anyways. I left what I came to give you on the table. I’m going now.”

“Wait,” he’s not a speedster but he’s not slow and he’s dashing across the kitchen to catch the other. His hand still closes on empty air and he runs after Jason who goes straight to the window. “Wait!”

Jason jumps out, the sound of a grapple gun firing following in the next second. Behind stays Dick Grayson, with the distinct feeling that he's missing something, he's not seeing all that demands to be seen.

**Three Months (B)**

Mr. Harrison sits alone in a cold bench under an old tree. The park isn't deserted but it has seen better days. In the distance he can hear the sound of children laughing, dogs barking, birds breaking into flight. When he turns to look at his side again, he sees a beautiful woman there.

She isn't looking at him. Her hands rest one atop the other on her lap, and she seems to be squeezing them in her iron-gripped hold.

"Knew you'd come," he says, smiling softly, lately all the razor sharp edge has been leaving him for longer and longer periods of time.

"You're an idiot," she talks with a tight voice and that's how he knows she's worried. "You could accept the treatment."

"We both know why I opted out."

"We could figure something out. Another option. I could take you there again."

"No," sitting up straight, he closes his eyes and feels the weight of the sun on his face. It's warm and calming. He could fall asleep like this. He's so tired… "Promise me you won't take me there even when. Even when."

"I don't like this," she says. She never reaches out to touch him. They can still feel each other's body heat. "I promise. And I promise to make sure everyone respects your wishes."

"Thank you," his voice is a whisper, now. He's slipping into a daze. He's tired. So tired. If he could just…

"Come on," the woman stands up and gently places her hands on his shoulders. This gentleness is like a memory from before. A ghost of his past. Of when time was abundant and he was running on the potential of his glory. What has been of all that? What has become of him? "Come on, I'll accompany you to your place. You shouldn't be left alone."

**Three Months (A.1)**

The good doctor pinches the bridge of their nose and Harrison already has all the confirmation he needs. This one is bad, truly bad, and the temporary solution might not even work. Even if he were to accept it.

"I'm terribly sorry," the good doctor says, showing him the results of all the tests, scans, everything. Harrison looks over them, sees the clear evidence and has to fight back a laugh. "It has already spread to the liver. There is not much left to do."

"How long?," Harrison asks then, resting one hand on the edge of the desk, quickly building up walls of fortitude to accept whatever answer he will get. "How long till I'm left useless?"

"Mr. Harrison," the doctor frowns at his choice of words, ready to contradict him, but one look is enough to make them ditch that course of action. "It depends entirely on your metabolism. It could be anywhere between a couple of months or just one. Though it's likely that you won't make it to the end of the year."

Closing his eyes is inevitable, as well as the feeling of losing all air is unshakeable.

So this is how it all comes falling down.  
So this is the fall of his castle of glass.

“Thank you,” his voice comes out in a whisper. He stands, blinks away his many regrets and gathers the printouts of all the medical studies. The good doctor stares at him the same way someone stares at a shadow without attached body. It’s a pretty accurate look.

Harrison walks himself to the door. His hand rests on the latch for a moment, not quite turning it yet, before he looks over his shoulder, offers a smile he knows will haunt the doctor to the near future.

“You told her, haven’t you?”

They unfreeze from their stupor, stand hastily and give only two steps when they stop altogether.

“Yes,” they admit with a curt nod, eyes drifting to the side, towards the wall, “she contacted me the same day you first asked for my services.”

“That’s good,” Harrison says, shoulders relaxing, “I really didn’t want to be the one to call her.”

**Two Months (½)**

Stephanie is the one who finds him:

Jason’s without his helmet, hunched over and barely holding himself up at all as he empties his stomach in a dark, dirty alley. From her position (standing on the low roof of the building right across the street) she can also tell that his hair is glued to his face, damp with sweat.

The hand on the brick wall is shaking - no, his whole body is shaking, tremors growing more and more obvious by the second, and that’s when she truly knows this… this is _bad._

“Requesting back up,” she speaks softly into her comm, instincts letting her know that she cannot afford to startle Jason, that if he were to realize she’s there (and that’s just another tick on the ‘Need help ASAP’ column), he’d pull himself together just enough to run away. “Hood’s ill. Could be affected by an unknown substance.”

_“I’m not getting any vitals,”_ Barbara, always so dependable, replies quickly, the sound of her typing somehow calming and reassuring, _“can’t contact him either. He’s not wearing his comm.”_

_“I’m almost there,”_ Dick talks next, which, wow, she needs to get reacquainted with his voice, _“five minutes eta.”_

“I’m approaching him now,” Steph keeps her voice down and her steps as light as possible, climbing down the building, partially sticking to the shadows.

Jason has yet to sense her. This is not bad. This is straight up wrong.

All the hairs in her body prickle when she feels a new presence. Steph freezes, hands already going for her weapons, and looks into the shadows next to Jason that are suddenly moving with too much liquid grace.

_Holy fu-_

“You shouldn’t be out here,” motherfucking _Talia al Ghul_ says, disapproving frown on her face as she swiftly walks to Jason’s side, hand resting on his back, “you know that.”

He lets out something close to a snort. “I can’t just _stop,_ these people… they need someone.”

“So do you,” the expression she gives him now can only be described as fond and Steph distinctly feels like she’s entered an alternate reality. Next thing she knows, Talia is looking straight at her. “It would be easier if you would tell them, dear.”

“No,” Jason snarls, wiping the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, “you know I can’t do that. And I won’t let you do that.”

“I’m afraid you are in no position to stop me if I were to try, Jason,” she’s wrapping an arm around his waist now, helping him stand up again, and doesn’t wait for him to regain his full balance when she’s already moving, “come, it’s best we leave now. You don’t really want an audience.”

_Too fucking late,_ Steph thinks, ignoring both Barbara’s and Dick’s voices going off in her ear, and instead moves inside the alley, trying to follow them, because she’d be damned if she lost them. Still no matter where she looks, they are well and truly gone.

**Two Months (Later)**

Dick holds back a wince as Bruce slams his hands down on the console of the main computer. They are all worried and frustrated, but this is one of those odd cases where physical violence really takes them nowhere. (What an irony.)

“Let’s go over what we know,” he proposes and bears the full weight of Bruce’s eyes on him, offering a calming smile in answer, “Stephanie saw Jason in his usual territory near Crime Alley, without his helmet, visibly sick.”

“He could’ve ditched his helmet in a fight,” Steph chimes in, walking back and forth and viciously biting her lower lip, “and that’s how he could’ve been infected!”

Tim shakes his head, sitting on an empty cot of the medical bay he brought closer to the center of the cave sometime around five minutes ago. “Except we have scoured the zone and we found no evidence of either the helmet or a fight.”

Dick hums. "He could've left it behind. It wouldn't be the first time."

"That still doesn't change the fact that there is no evidence of a fight, and Barbara didn't see anything in the camera recordings either."

Bruce grunts, which isn't unexpected, and turns back to the computer, starts typing all over again. "Talia was with him. She took him."

"Ok, so we find her-"

"She _did_ say something about him keeping a secret from us and-"

"What's another secret, am I right?"

"Perhaps he's back with the League? But that doesn't make sense. They wouldn't take him back, would they?"

"Maybe not the League, but Talia alone-"

"Enough," Damian's voice travels through the cave, making everyone freeze. This is the first thing he says after hearing the news. "Todd wasn't poisoned. Or infected. And he's certainly not working for my mother."

Dick closes the distance between them, smiling softly once they are facing each other. In his worry about Jason, he had momentarily forgotten about the impact knowing Talia is in Gotham could have on Damian. But all the kid gives him is a fleeting glance, instead focusing his gaze on Bruce, because Damian knows there is suspicion based on proof forming in his father's head.

"Todd is sick," he says, disrupting the very flow of the universe, "ill enough for it to require my mother's presence."

**Week One (-3)**

He opens his eyes with a long low groan. There's a pair of hands holding his and when he turns to greet the face of the person keeping him company, he tenses. No. No, no, _no._

"You are… you are…"

"Indeed, Master Jason."

"But I- I can't. Not yet. I still have to-"

"I know, my boy. This is simply… an early visit."

"If… if you are here… but, we can't be going to the same place. I refuse to- I can't accept this. You deserve _salvation._ "

"So do you, Jason," with a knowing smile he stands up, hands leaving, "I believe visiting hours are over. But please. Do consider letting Master Bruce know."

"I guess," he chokes out before he starts coughing, throat constricting and closing up. He closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, feels his entire body rejecting the strain - _air,_ he holds his throat in one hand, tears gathering, _for the love of all, air_ \- someone rushes to his side, firmly strokes his back until what's left of the flame of life breathes back inside him.

"Oh, dear," Talia's voice never sounded so much like honey, "I'm afraid it's time, Jason."

He knows. He knows, because he can feel it. He can feel his body dying. It's in every second of pain radiating from his side, within his abdomen, pulsating from the liver he can feel underneath his fingertips with his own meager physical exams every night, every morning. He knows because the skin around his eyes is a sickly yellow, because he can't eat without puking, because he can't fight. 

And what is left of a survivor when you take that away from him? What is left of himself when he's nothing but a husk of his former glory?

"Take me. Let me… let me see them one last time," he says. When he looks up, Talia's smiling. It's a bitter sight.

**Week Two (-2)**

Dick is the first one who comes back, the first one who replied to Barbara's soft warning, heeding the tremor in her voice. He's the first one to walk back into the cave and _see_ them, Talia standing by Jason's side, Jason sitting in the main computer's chair. And Dick stops right where he is, eyes wide and hands shaking because that man in front of him can't really be _his_ Jason, _their_ Jason, he-

"Dickwand," the man speaks and that's enough to shatter any attempt of denial.

"Jay," he breathes out, rushes closer till he's kneeling right in front of him, but he doesn't dare to reach out. He doesn't want to feel Jason's sunken cheeks, the skin under his dull eyes, the paleness of his complexion. "Jay," he tries again and fails because that's when Bruce and everybody else arrive.

"Hey there," Jason goes for a grin and _gods, no, not this,_ "hey, B."

"Jason," Bruce shakes everyone's foundations.

"Came to say goodbye."

**Week Three ( )**

There are fresh flowers on the fresh grave.

The good doctor had been right. He did not live to see the new year.

**Author's Note:**

> Pancreatic cancer often goes unchecked till it finally develops symptoms, and by the time that happens the cancer is already in its last stages while having spread to the liver and other organs. When this happens, the doctors warn you the ill person might not survive the month, that they'll be lucky to live more than three months at all.
> 
> Getting used to someone not being there is a work in process. Some days it's like nothing's ever changed, other days you blame yourself for forgetting. What you miss is the opportunities lost, you feel the empty spaces, you are too aware of the empty chair during reunions. You still live and laugh and move on because that's the nature of existence. 
> 
> It's not about things getting better. It's about learning to accept and to live with the loss.


End file.
